University of California, Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Dee Denton, 46, died in the early summer in what authorities are reporting was an apparent suicide. Denton fell from a 43-story luxury apartment building in San Francisco in late June. Her mother was quoted in several press reports as saying that Denton had been depressed recently.

Joseph Aoun is leaving his post as dean of the University of Southern California's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to be president of Northeastern University. On the surface, it may seem that Boston-based Northeastern is a far cry from the Los Angeles-based USC, but the two universities have important similarities. Both are private institutions with large enrollments. USC has a total enrollment close to 33,000; Northeastern's is close to 23,000.

Since fall 2005, the regents at the University of Arizona have been looking for a successor to Peter Likins, the president who has held office for nine years, and who is retiring in June. One hundred candidates applied, but Robert Shelton, an executive vice chancellor and provost/professor of physics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, got the job.